migration
Several interior ministers want to end citizen’s allowance for Ukrainians
Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl. From Strobl’s point of view, the citizen’s allowance could be the reason why people from Ukraine choose Germany as their destination for their escape. Photo
© Bernd Weissbrod/dpa
The citizen’s allowance for Ukrainian refugees is controversial. The chairman of the Conference of Interior Ministers is against it – and is getting support. An economist, however, speaks of “pure populism”.
Several interior ministers want to stop the payment of They want to end the payment of citizen’s allowance to war refugees from Ukraine. Instead, they want to ensure that only lower payments are made under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.
Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl called for the federal government to change course. He hopes for a strong, joint stance from the states at the upcoming Interior Ministers’ Conference (IMK) in Potsdam, said the CDU minister in Stuttgart. The IMK will meet in Potsdam from Wednesday to Sunday. Most recently, the chairman of the IMK, Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen, and Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) also criticized the offer for Ukrainians.
Strobl: Germany may be the target because of citizen’s income
From Strobl’s point of view, the citizen’s allowance could be the reason why people from Ukraine choose Germany as their destination for their escape. “It is possible that we have a particularly large number of Ukrainians in Germany, in contrast to our neighbouring country France, for example, because there are high levels of social benefits here that are not available anywhere else in Europe,” said Strobl.
Especially with regard to men liable for military service, the citizen’s allowance is a bad choice: “If we are serious about strengthening the Ukrainians’ defence struggle, then we must make our contributions everywhere.”
However, the federal government continues to reject calls for lower state benefits for Ukrainian war refugees. There are no plans to do so. The approximately 1.1 million war refugees from Ukraine who are in Germany were admitted in accordance with the so-called mass influx directive and therefore did not have to apply for asylum.
Economist: Debate about citizen’s allowance for Ukrainians is populism
Economist Marcel Fratzscher criticized the calls for a restriction of the citizen’s allowance as “pure populism.” “Nobody will be better off, nobody will have a single euro more if Germany treats refugees worse and cuts their benefits,” the president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).
“The German state must not spend less money on refugees, but make more efforts to ensure faster and better integration of refugees into the labor market and society,” Fratzscher demanded. This is also a huge economic opportunity, as the labor problem in this country will become massively worse in the coming years.
This currently applies
While in the first few months after the start of the Russian war of aggression, Ukrainian refugees were only entitled to benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, since June 2022 they have been able to receive basic social security, i.e. the same benefits as recipients of citizen’s allowance (then still Hartz IV). One of the reasons for this was that they are directly entitled to a residence permit and do not have to wait for a decision like asylum seekers.